vienna

that is, the cultic, 358 this window is undoubtedly located at the pole of cult. It
transcends the clear message of the percentage sign and the tangibility of words.
INNERE STADT
Vienna’s first district is not only home to extremely expensive boutiques
but also to more reasonably priced, middle-class fashion stores. The customers
are a mix of tourists and local people. We recognise the very first signs of the
seasonal sale of the autumn/winter collection when we read the weekend issue of
a newspaper a few days before New Year’s Eve.
We find a full-page advertisement on page three, right in the middle of the section
on politics. It’s a rather dark photograph, a close-up of a water drop in the middle
of a brushed steel surface and two smaller drops. The motif looks like an eye
with two tears running down steel skin. When we look deep into the eye, we
discern a word we had not seen before. It is a combination of the brand name and
the word “sale” at the end, written in the same typeface as the company’s logo.
A small notice at the bottom of the advertisement says: “AB 29. DEZEMBER 2003”.
It is Monday. We continue to leaf through the paper and then on page five,
between two articles on international terror attacks, is a black surface with a
few words on it. It looks like similar sized death announcements that appear in
this newspaper from time to time.
The advertisement is black and white, whereby black is used to cover the entire
surface. On the top centre is the brand logo, beyond it, “autumn/winter collection”.
After a few empty spaces come the words, “sale begins today”. The advertisement
ends with an address in one of Vienna’s most expensive shopping streets in the
first district, where flagship stores of major couture brands are also located.
Flagship stores have increasingly acquired the status of tourist sights.
Shopping is a rubric featured in all city guides, although the shopping streets in
most major capitals look the same. It is the same brands, and corporate design
358 Hollein (1981:32).
Innere Stadt
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